


Only Love Can Break Your Spark

by fransoun



Series: Captain and Commander [2]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: But coping, Coping, M/M, Not healthy coping, Pre-Relationship, This can only end well, Ultra Magnus is floundering and making Rodimus his rock
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-22
Updated: 2015-10-22
Packaged: 2018-04-10 14:35:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4395620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fransoun/pseuds/fransoun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the aftermath of Luna 1, Ultra Magnus is struggling to cope with the upending of everything he thought he knew. And for some reason, he can't seem to stop thinking about Rodimus.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Luna 1 lay several days behind them, and Ultra Magnus couldn't find it in his spark to be anything but glad.

Actually, as far as the now ex-enforcer was concerned, if he never heard the name "Luna 1" again, it would be all too soon. Unfortunately, Ultra Magnus knew he wouldn't have that luxury.

He had a stack of empty datapads sitting neatly squared away on the corner of his desk, ready to be filled with records and reports and all sorts of official accounts of what had transpired on the surface of the seething moon. Normally, Ultra Magnus would have rubbed his hands together in glee (well, metaphorically speaking, which Ultra Magnus wasn't really comfortable with) and dived right in.

But nothing about Luna 1 had been normal. Luna 1 had been... _personal_ , and Ultra Magnus didn't have any idea how to deal with personal.

On Luna 1, he had made mistakes. A lot of mistakes. Maybe more mistakes than he'd ever made before.

Tyrest had told him those mistakes had started eighteen months ago, when Ultra Magnus had joined the crew of the Lost Light. When he'd accepted the post as Rodimus' second-in-command and left Chief Justice Tyrest in the dark.

He should have been reporting in. Ultra Magnus knew that. As the Duly Appointed Enforcer of the Tyrest Accord, he should have been uploading daily reports to the Chief Justice via the subspace transmitter in the armor. True, they'd might have lost themselves on the map, but Tyrest had designed the transmitter to reach him no matter where in the galaxy his enforcer might find himself. No one could escape the long arm of the Law.

No, Ultra Magnus had made the decision himself.

He'd tried to justify it. The crimes he was documenting on the Lost Light weren't worth wasting the Chief Justice's time. Tyrest didn't need to know about Swerve's repeated violations of the Military Regalia Act. Instead, Ultra Magnus sent memo after memo to Rodimus.  His observations on corridor lighting. Risk analyses of _Lost Light_ signage. A fifteen-part doorframe audit (he took particular pride in that one - lengthy and thorough, some of his best work). All of these documented rule breaches were still of the utmost importance, of course, and he duly marked each of his memos as 'URGENT'.

But he didn't need to bother the Chief Justice with them.

Not that Ultra Magnus hadn't been keeping track of the _other_ offenses on board - most notably Rodimus' increasingly near-transgressions of the Fit Persons Act. And Ultra Magnus had intended to report them all to the Chief Justice in good time - truly, he had. But there was always just one more matter of crew discipline he found he needed to attend to...

Then Overlord had run him through the spark, and he'd run out of excuses.

And Ultra Magnus, Duly Appointed Enforcer of the Tyrest Accord and first officer of the _Lost Light_ , had betrayed his ship, his crew, and his captain to Chief Justice Tyrest.

Ultra Magnus had never served under a captain before.

He'd found the adjustment difficult. His ship - the _Iron Will_ , the ship Rodimus had stolen from him back on Earth - was meant to be piloted by one mech and one mech alone - the Duly Appointed Enforcer of the Tyrest Accord. The Chief Justice had considered a crew to be nothing more than a liability. It only increased the risk that criminals or scofflaws or - or _wayward characters_ might make their way on board. Even worse, his Enforcer might become _attached_ to his crew, might come to _care_ for them or form _relationships_ with them - and place their safety and well-being above the merciless pursuit of Justice under the Law. In Tyrest's mind, this was an utterly unacceptable outcome. So Ultra Magnus had been the _Iron Will_ 's captain and crew all in one.

Now, Rodimus was his captain.

Rodimus, who had refused to speak to Bumblebee when they left Cybertron. Rodimus, who had baited his trap for the sparkeater with Rung. Rodimus, who had ordered Swerve to shoot even after Fortress Maximus had been subdued. Rodimus, who had Cyclonus arrested without cause and deliberately antagonized the Galatic Council and behaved with astounding immaturity when Thunderclash's ship had docked and -

Rodimus, who had brought Overlord on board.

Ultra Magnus had been able to offer his advice when he didn't approve of Rodimus' decisions (which had been alarmingly often). He'd put a hand on Rodimus' elbow, guide him to the corner of the room, and ask him if he was sure this was wise, and perhaps Ultra Magnus might suggest this alternative course of action instead...

Ultra Magnus supposed he frowned when he did that. He'd never really considered it before.

Either way, it hadn't mattered. Rodimus had never listened, and Magnus' list of misgivings had grown and grown.

But he'd found that, in spite of all his frustrations and his concerns, he _liked_ his captain.

No. Wait.

He liked _having_ a captain. There. That was what he’d meant.

Besides, Rodimus had come clean to him in the end, hadn't he? On Luna 1, hardwired into Tyrest's killswitch, Rodimus had called Magnus over and confessed what he'd done. And then he'd promised to make amends and - and -

And wasn't that the purpose of Law and Justice, after all?

Afterwards, Rodimus had held his hand.  
  
Magnus stared down at the massive white servo resting in his lap. It hadn't been that hand, of course - Minimus had been outside the armor, stripped down to his irreducible self, when Rodimus had laced his warm yellow fingers through Minimus' tiny green ones. Magnus imagined he could still feel the tingle of his captain's touch.

It was so much easier to think about that than anything else that had happened on that moon.

Magnus flexed his fingers, curling them gently. No one had ever held his hand before.

It was such a small gesture. Or rather, Magnus _thought_ it was a small gesture. Truth be told, he had no idea what the hand-holding meant. He wished someone would create a sort of numerical scale on which to rank various manners of physical contact and correlate them to specific meanings in the context of a personal relationship.

Rodimus might have been a good mech to begin his inquiries with, but Magnus felt his faceplates heat at the very thought.

Because Magnus had touched Rodimus a lot.

It hadn't - it hadn't been anything like _that_.  These were casual touches only, easily exchanged, the kind Minimus had always craved and despised himself for craving, and the kind that Rodimus gave away so thoughtlessly and freely.  Insistent jabs in his side whenever Rodimus wanted his attention. A flame-colored hand resting on his forearm as Rodimus conversed with him, Matrix-blue optics looking earnestly up at his second-in-command. Fingertips brushing against his as he took a datapad from Magnus' hand.

And Magnus had responded in kind without ever a thought. A touch on Rodimus' elbow to guide him away from others for a private rebuke. Grabbing at his upper arm (and leaving dents, sometimes, when Minimus Ambus forgot who he was) to hold his captain back when Magnus just need him to _listen_. A palm on that sleek, sleek spoiler when Magnus drew him to one side to speak privately, Rodimus leaning happily into his hand. By the time Magnus had realized this - this _trap_ he'd fallen into, it was far, far too late to give it up.

But now Magnus found himself wanting to touch Rodimus in other ways, too, ways he didn't understand. The ex-enforcer wanted to trace gentle fingers along edges the delicate sweeps of metal that framed the speedster's face. He wanted to slide his hands around that biolight-ringed waist, those flared, angular hips, and pull him close. He wanted to hug Rodimus like he'd hugged Thunderclash - but differently as well. Longer? Tighter? Closer, maybe? Magnus didn't know. He didn't even know why he wanted any of this at all.

He _shouldn't_ be wanting any of this. That much he did know. What he should be wanting was to - was to -

 _Make amends_.

And he _should_ be suffocating under the crushing weight of the guilt for what he'd done, but he wasn't. He _should_ been feeling like a failure, like a loser, like the worthless nobody he knew himself to be, the one that nobody would miss - but he wasn't.

Instead, he kept thinking about Rodimus. It was so much easier that way.

Ultra Magnus stared down at the uncluttered, spotless, graffiti-free surface of his desk and, instead of thinking of  Tyrest and his control room, thought of Rodimus and his compulsive doodling.

He stared at the stack of datapads waiting to be filled and, instead of thinking of Tyrest and his Repository, filled with every rule and regulation, every law and bit of legislation, thought of Rodimus and the single datapad Magnus had finally convinced him to carry around so he could at least get Magnus' memos. Rodimus had carved flames around the edges.

Yes, they'd made mistakes - both of them had. But Rodimus was going to make amends. If he could, then maybe Magnus could, too. Maybe they could do it together.

He had to believe that.

Ultra Magnus' comm blipped at him. Incoming call from Rodimus. Ultra Magnus' spark leapt in his chest.

"Magnus? It's me. Would you mind coming up to my office?"

"I'll be right there, Rodimus."

Magnus pulled in a deep vent, rose, and headed for the door.


	2. Chapter 2

Normally, Ultra Magnus would spend the walk to Rodimus’ office preparing. He would take the few kliks he required to reach the captain’s office from his own ( _walking_ , not driving through the ship’s corridors like it was the Ibex Cup, as so many of his fellow crew members were wont to do) to construct a sound argument against whatever fool-hardly plan Rodimus had come up with this time. After a year and a half under the Rodimus’ command, Ultra Magnus knew he really ought to know better, but he stubbornly persisted in the belief that somehow, if his argument was well-reasoned enough, thought-through enough, _logical_ enough that this time Rodimus would _have_ to listen.

It had yet to work, of course, but that hadn’t stopped Magnus from trying.

This time, however, Magnus had no idea why Rodimus had summoned him. Rodimus hadn’t mentioned it, and Ultra Magnus had completely forgotten to ask. He’d simply...obeyed.

Just like he always did.

Now that he was thinking about it, though, the possibilities made Magnus’ tank churn. After all, he had betrayed the Lost Light, its crew, and its captain to Tyrest. Holding Rodimus’ hand hadn’t changed any of that. Nothing that he’d felt or - or _thought_ he’d felt with the speedster in that quiet moment in the medbay together had changed _any_ of that. Rodimus was still his captain, and Ultra Magnus remained - for now, at least - a member of his crew, subject to his discipline.

Maybe Rodimus had summoned him to formally reprimand him, to place a permanent black mark on his official record for his disgraceful actions. Or maybe Rodimus planned to relieve him of command, to strip him of his rank and order him to disembark when the ship reached Cybertron. The position of Duly Appointed Enforcer had already been taken from him - would he lose the position of second-in-command of the _Lost Light_ as well? Or maybe -

Or maybe it was Ultra Magnus’ turn to have the Autobot badge torn from his chest.

Magnus tried very hard to stop thinking after that.

It didn’t work. He arrived at the door to Rodimus’ office with his fuel pump pounding, each and every terrible possibility his processor could conjure looping over and over through his head. When he lifted his hand to ring the door chime, he saw that it was shaking.

That would not do. Ultra Magnus sternly instructed his frame to compose itself. He was Ultra Magnus, and though he might not be the Duly Appointed Enforcer of the Tyrest Accord any longer, he would still comport himself with dignity and in such a way as commanded respect. He would not be called a laughingstock, and he would perform his duties to the utmost of his ability right up until the very end -

\- _and he most definitely would not think about falling to his knees before Tyrest, begging,_ pleading _with the Chief Justice not to take from him the one thing that mattered to him, the one thing that gave his life meaning_ -

Ultra Magnus punched the door chime more than a little desperately.

“Come in.”

The door to Rodimus’ office slid open, and Ultra Magnus swallowed his dread and stepped through.

The interior of the office looked very different than the last time he’d seen it.

For one, there were the cans of paint stacked in the corner. Each had a neat little square of color carefully marked on its lid - regulation orange, rather than the garish pink Rodimus had chosen for his office. Magnus recognized the cans - he’d marked those lids himself. But the office itself was in no shape to be painted.

Ultra Magnus was good at weapons - identifying them, tracking them, and, when necessary, _using_ them. It had been part of his job as Enforcer, and the Magnus armor came equipped with a substantial on-board armory with which Ultra Magnus had practiced long and hard to ensure his proficiency.

The triple sets of holes on the wall, surrounded by scorch marks and blackened paint, were easy to identify. They were the signatures of Rodimus’ wrist-mounted weaponry, which Magnus was quite familiar with, having witnessed the captain deploy them in numerous combat situations both on- and off-board the _Lost Light_. The other markings...Magnus frowned.

If he took Rodimus’ hand - _held it carefully in his own, lacing their fingers together and_ focus, Magnus - and folded it into a fist, it would exactly match the size and shape of the remaining holes in the wall.

Rodimus himself sat hunched over his desk, scribbling away - on a datapad, for once, and not the surface of the desk itself. That surface was actually covered with datapads, stacks and stacks of them, more than Magnus had ever seen in his captain’s presence before. As the door slid shut behind him, Rodimus looked up from his writing and offered Magnus a tired smile, and the tension in Magnus’ spark eased just a bit. He glanced at the datapads.

Rodimus followed Magnus’ gaze and laughed ruefully.  “After-action reports. Since you left, there’s been a lot of ‘action’ and not much ‘after’. I’ve gotten a little behind.”

Magnus opened his mouth to reply that Rodimus had never been “in front” of the crew’s reports to begin with, but then the bubble popped and the warmth of the moment vanished as Magnus remembered why he was here. Instead, he drew himself rigidly to attention and fixed his optics straight ahead. “You asked to see me, captain?”

The captain blinked bemusedly up at him from amongst the piles of paperwork. “You can relax, Magnus. I was just wondering if you could, y’know - ” He waved his hand at his covered desk. “ - help me out a bit? I know you’ve been through a lot in the past few days, and if you don’t feel up to it, that’s fine, but if you do I could really use a hand and I thought maybe something familiar would help  - ” Rodimus’ spoiler drooped. “ - would help get things back to normal again.”

“So you didn’t call me in here to reprimand me, captain?”

Rodimus blinked up at him. “Why would I do that?”

“I betrayed you, Rodi - captain. And the ship, and the crew. I betrayed you all to Chief Justice - to Tyrest.”

“And you don’t think I _didn’t_ do that when I brought Overlord on board? At least you were trying to fix things.” Rodimus sighed and put his head in his hand. “Look, there’s plenty of blame to go around here, all right? But right now we just need to focus on getting back to Cybertron because somehow _Starscream’s_ in charge there and there’s no way _that’s_ not going to be trouble (if it isn’t already) and to do that this ship needs to be functional again. Or as close to that as we can get, anyway.”

Rodimus looked back up at Magnus. “Can I tell you something, Magnus?”

Magnus nodded, unsure of what to say.

“I’m putting my captaincy to the vote. Letting the crew decide whether I should stay in or go. So if - if they vote me out, maybe whoever replaces me will discipline you or demote you or whatever. But me? No. I’m not going to reprimand you or - or anything like that. I want you to stay on as my second-in-command - unless, of course - ” Rodimus cringed slightly. “ - you want to leave?”

Magnus shook his head mutely, and Rodimus perked up. “Oh! That’s good. I like that. That’s - yeah. Okay. So.”  He gestured for Magnus to sit and shoved a stack of datapads across the desk at him.

“I’ve got reports from Fort Max and Hound about what happened on-board the ship, and Ratchet’s sent in the report from the moon’s medbay - he told me not to expect one from First Aid - and Perceptor and Brainstorm wrote a report on Tyrest’s portal technology except it reads more like an argument, and Cyclonus basically told me his was ‘personal’ and I got Whirl’s out of him but that’s about as useful as you’d expect, and - ”

Magnus settled into his chair and picked up the first pad off the stack.

A few cycles later, Rodimus collapsed dramatically facedown onto his desk and groaned. “Uggghhh. That’s it. I give up. I can’t take it anymore. How do you _do_ this, Mags?”

Magnus gazed fondly at Rodimus. The speedster had spent the past few hours - more than that, the past few _days_ \- acting more like a captain than Ultra Magnus had ever seen. “Proper record-keeping is essential to the orderly and efficient operation of any vessel - ”

Rodimus lifted his head and gave Magnus a pleading look, his lower lip trembling just a bit, and Magnus cut himself off. “ - but perhaps we could take a break to refuel.”

Rodimus smiled, and Magnus felt his spark leap.

Rodimus had been right - the comforting familiarity of routine had done Ultra Magnus good. Magnus felt far more reflexed - no, wait, _relaxed_ \- than he had when he’d walked into Rodimus’ office just a few cycles before.

And far more daring, too. The relief that had flooded his systems when Rodimus had told him that he wanted Magnus to _stay_ had lingered in Mangus’ systems as the two of them had sat together, as they’d worked together. He felt almost light-headed now, energon fizzing and bubbling through his fuel lines.

And Rodimus was _smiling_ at him.

Maybe everything would be all right after all.

Magnus stretched out a trembling hand to where Rodimus’ rested on his desk and gently covered it with his own.


End file.
